Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

         I've been reading the books in the Flowers in the Attic series lately (three down, two to go), thanks to my viewing and enjoyment of the Lifetime original film based on the first book. The jury is still out as to whether or not this was a bad decision, though I will say that summarizing the plots of the second and third book out loud to my mother made me sound like an absolute raving lunatic. Unquestionably, though, the books' subject matter, while largely absurd, is unrelenting in its grim, sordid nature. As such, I'm going for a shift in tone today to talk about the pinnacle of levity: a joke book. Certainly something as mirthful as a textual compilation of time-honored humor must be worlds away from the debilitating trauma of V.C. Andrews's seminal works, right? Well hold the phone there, Ma Bell , because the gears of this joke machine are oiled by tears.      Let's start with the author. Does his name look familiar? If you read this blog regularl

     The nightmare starts the same, every time. I'm out for a stroll in the jungle, and no matter how exhausted I may get, I can never stop walking. Wild animals, insects and weird fish attack me for reasons beyond my comprehension, and I ward them off by throwing that most primitive of weapons: the rock. Eventually, I happen upon a stone axe within some underbrush, and just as I'm starting to feel good about my chances of survival in this savage wilderness, the lily pads appear on the horizon, and my heart fills with despair...      I was seven years old when this photo was taken on Christmas Eve:      For most of my life, my family has been on the lower end of the disposable income spectrum. However, there was a time, so long ago in my youth, when my grandparents were doing pretty well financially. This meant that Christmas would entail a veritable bonanza of gifts from them, which in my case meant several Nintendo games. As you can see, I'm pretty pleased with my

     Point 1: There was a section of the library at Lincoln Elementary School that seemed like it was just for me. Not a section proper, cordoned off with a "Joey Marsilio Only" sign (wonderful though that would have been), but rather a number of books that I am fairly certain no one ever checked out but me. There was a book about the history of the werewolf, for example, that I probably read half a dozen times, and of course it was always on the shelf if I got a hankering to check it out, because who else is going to read something like that? Some other weirdo, probably, but I never met him or her.      Point 2: Largely due to my fascination with the supernatural that lead me to checking out the aforementioned werewolf book, I have always loved Halloween to an unreasonable degree. So much so, in fact, that anything even tangentially related to Halloween would grab my attention as a kid. Scarecrows? Pumpkins? Corn stalks? Sure, let's see what this is all about.

          It's October again, the leaves are changing colors, and if the latest Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer is any indication, people are really into pumpkin. Seriously, like 80% of that thing is ads for pumpkin-flavored foods. Now, this is cool with me, since I'm quite the squashophile myself. You may recall an article I wrote last year, about the release of the O.G. game-changing jack-o'-lantern carving book, Carve-O-Lantern (if you need a refresher, here's the link ). Seeing as how I just scratched the surface of the Carve-O-Lantern universe in that article, it's high time I wrote a follow-up where I can really give you the inside scoop on the product line. So, uh, here is that follow-up.      Indulge me for a moment in an extended simile: Carve-O-Lantern is like the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering . It's true! Both are products that arrived on the scene relatively unheralded, only to become massive successes. Both are icons in their r

     I recently posted the following on Facebook. Don't worry, it's not family photos:      During war time, bombs get dropped; such is the nature of war. Tragically often, said bombs cause damage far beyond their intended targets. Such was the case one time, with a certain McDonald's, a bastion of unhealthy comfort food in a volatile area. Errant ordnance reduced this greasy palace to smoldering ruins, and it was small comfort that the debris-laden air smelled like french fries for hours afterwards. They say if you visit this site in the middle of the night, you will find a lone man there. He is a chubby fellow clad in black and white, an outfit that recalls old-timey prison garb. He sifts, heartbroken, through the charred remains. "Rubble, rubble," he sobs mournfully. "Rubble, rubble."      On the surface, this seems to be merely a strange joke, perhaps a bit long-winded considering how slight the punchline is. Yet it is also indicative o

         Recently, I was inspired to write a comedic post about Conjure , a Magic: The Gathering magazine from 1994. Conjure is a charmingly incompetent relic seemingly published by a team of guys killing time before the refill date for their anti-psychotic meds. As I wrote this post, though, I found myself with a problem: in order to write the sort of article I wanted to write, the piece was turning out to be pretty insider-y. That is to say, an audience without some understanding of the game of Magic would probably be fairly lost. As such, it didn't seem to be a great fit with the rest of my site (no mean feat for a blog combining lunchmeat reviews with an exhaustive analysis of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ). Rather than dilute the article, or scrap it entirely, I decided to see if a site dedicated to Magic content might be interested in it. I contacted noted Magic rabble-rouser Dr. Jeebus, proprietor of just such a site, mtgbrodeals.com , and after a bit of back an

I wrote this many years ago for my Myspace blog. I am reprinting it here since it is not particularly easy to access Myspace blogs these days, and my Scary Stories Power Rankings post has gotten me so much traffic that I feel this is something people may be interested in.    Today I am going to voice a complaint I have held within for several years. That's not entirely true; I have complained about it to others, but it is an obscure and perhaps inconsequential complaint that I doubt anyone remembers. Specifically, I would like to complain about the drop in quality between the audio book version of the first volume of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark , and the latter two volumes, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark , and Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones . Yep, when I said “specifically,” I meant it. It doesn't get any more specific than this, folks. The quality of the books themselves is outstanding; I dare say I wouldn't be the person I am